Wednesday, September 25

Review: Squadron/Signal’s SAAB 37 Viggen “Walk Around”

From any angle one of the coolest airplanes ever devised – by of all
people those “conservative” Swedish hey!? Well the SAAB Viggen (or Thunderbolt)
is the subject of a highly anticipated new model from Tarangus and I think that
a lot of modellers out there will need some reference material (the regular Swedish
mags I have are no good) – anyway let’s look at the new “Walkaround” book from Squadron/Signal Publications…

As far as it goes with finding decent resources for post
WWII aircraft there are two options – the “inters-nets” or books – and when it
comes to the likeable double delta design from SAAB in Sweden there has been
scant on offer for both. Having a look around there really isn’t much in the way
of quality reference for this bird. With the new kit from Tarangus coming out
in 48th scale well Squadron couldn’t have picked a better time to
come out with this could they?

This is a landscape softcover (there is a hardcover option
as well) in A4 with eighty pages of a fair bit of text, 196 colour and black
and white photos, several colour side on profiles and line drawings of not just
the whole aircraft in scale but smaller sections like the cockpit layouts and
weapons options.

The pages on my softcover book are flexible and glossy and
the pictures and writing are quite complimentary. All of the photography here
is in focus, not too dark and from a pretty good angle as to expose exactly
what he text accompanying it is about. You need not use too much imagination to
know what is in the frame and what it does. There are as I understand here
several photos published for the first time. You can see a lot of effort has
going into getting this particular title right - and I will start with the
writing.

Normally I don’t really notice much of the writing in these
walk around books – as their primary function seems to be about the pictures.
The text is often just to see the scene. Credit then must go to the author of
this book Mr Mikhail Putnikov, who has come out with some very interesting
passages that are informative and interesting. He takes us through the history
of this aircraft’s over 30 year career that spanned no wartime action but
plenty of variants and surprisingly (for an aircraft known mostly for their splinter
scheme) - lots of different coloured aircraft.

I learned a lot from
his pen and I was held to the book until I finished it. Not a massive
undertaking I grant you at 80 pages of mostly captioned words, but it was a
pleasure to read his text. When translation for parts or variants are needed or
even just hinted at they are provided as well. Now let’s take you through the
chapters a little..

Firstly the prototype silver aircraft are explored. The
introduction explores some of the concept of the double delta design and the STOL
capabilities it was designed for. It is amazing to see these first prototypes were
launched in 1965 – This jet for me looked 70’s right out off the blueprints.

Speaking of drawings, there are several 72nd
scale line drawings of all of the variants in profile in the book with scale next
to them and a double page spread of the Viggen in a larger scale from front on,
profile and from underneath and top down. Again there is a ruler here but it
might have been nice to have some maybe some 48th scale plans so you
can tell other people where a model got it “drastically wrong”

There are also text, a photo and line drawings with a key
and numbers to describe the different aspects of several Viggen cockpits
(Instrument panels & side consoles). The AJS 37, the two seat SK37E and the
JA 37C are all here in detail. These are again filled with pictures but line
drawings of the throttles, ejector seats and all of the other main sub-assemblies
in the rest of the aircraft like landing gear. The drawings here are right on
as they are based on some of the original Saab technical manuals. Anyone who
has searched for accurate line drawings knows just how hard they are to come by
if there is any such thing!

We go from the first production variant – the AJ37 which had
the familiar hump on the spine which set it aside from the prototypes. The
weapons load out set this aside as well. Because until the year 2000 this
attack fighter was the prime ground attack variant for the Swedish air force.

The two seat “Skol” trainer was soon developed to get potential
pilots up to speed. There are several pictures of both of the cockpits and their
particulars, also of some assemblies like the engine and exhaust/ reverse
thrust device and electronic warfare fairings on the wings. Several shots of the
two seater in flight show that even this humpback like configuration was a good
looker.

Viggen was designed as a multirole combat aircraft capable
of performing fighter, strike and reconnaissance duties, it is the two versions
of the photo-reconnaissance version often called the “Spannings” (surveillance)
aircraft - that are highlighted in the next section of the book. There are
several shots of many different kites as well as the pods they carry with
detailed descriptions of their abilities and contents. The different nose is
one of the distinguishing characteristics and you can see it clearly here.

The last in the series was the second generation of Viggen
the “Jakt” JA 37 – this features and all new gun, engine and radar layout and
thankfully all are featured in this part of the book, with helpful text again
explaining things as well as some great pictures of the aircraft in flight and their
bases – which were a large part of the plans for this STOL aircraft in a cold
war environment between two superpowers.

The last Viggen flight in Swedish military service was in
June 2007, and lastly in the book there are some excellent schemes of this aircraft
that show that it was far from just a splinter or grey camo to choose from when
you get your Tarangus kit! What a beautiful aircraft…

There aren’t many books about the Viggen out there – and I suppose
this book will dissuade a few others from trying. The Saab 37 is a great
subject for modellers and I think that this will be one of their “Go to” books.
Viggen & aviation fans will love it to.

This is a step above the usual “Walk Around“ series if you
ask me – an excellent book.